Accessible Housing Austin! provides housing to members of the disability community. Our mission is to ensure that our housing is accessible, affordable, and integrated.
Accessible housing is useful to, and usable by, people with disabilities. This includes things like a no step entrance with clear pathways for those with visual impairments, grab bars in the bathroom, and wheelchair ramps. When AHA! rehabilitates a housing unit, anything we change is made accessible. In addition, AHA! provides reasonable accommodations for our tenants. This means that a tenant can request a change that goes a bit beyond the standard requirements but will improve the usability of the home. Examples of reasonable accommodations include a visual doorbell for someone with a hearing impairment, or moving a person’s mailbox to the lowest level so it is within reach of a person in a wheelchair.
Any construction completed by AHA! complies with federal, state and local access laws and guidelines. Local and national guidelines include the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), the Texas Accessibility Standards, the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines, and the Austin Visitability Ordinance. The laws that cover access in housing are Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, The Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988, the Austin Visitability Ordinance, and the Austin Building Code.
When we say affordable, we mean housing that is affordable to persons on disability incomes, which can be as low as 11% of the Median Family Income (MFI) for the Austin-Round Rock Metro area. For people who live solely on disability benefits, a lot of affordable housing is still very expensive. We try to keep our rents as low as possible, so tenants aren’t spending all of their money on housing, but still have a quality place to live. This is sometimes referred to as housing that is deeply affordable. AHA!’s income guidelines can be found at: https://ahaustin.orgaha-accessible-housing-austin/ (Opens in New Window)
Integrated housing does not segregate people with disabilities from non-disabled people. In addition, integrated housing includes people from different income levels. AHA! strives to create communities where all people are welcome and included. Too often, people with disabilities are set apart. By cutting people with disabilities off from neighborhoods, it deprives us of opportunities to thrive, and deprives the rest of society from seeing people with disabilities as the awesome people that we are!
In integrated housing, no more than one quarter (25%) of the units can be set aside for people with disabilities. However, the remaining units are available to be occupied by people with or without disabilities – Fair Housing Laws open units to everyone that qualifies.
We also believe services and supports, so vital to so many people with disabilities, are best not tied to housing. We are strong supporters of community services and support systems, when needed. However, when your landlord is also your service provider, or your service provider is also your landlord, that person or entity winds up with too much control over your life and your options.